I abandoned my gun for the Bible

"I do not know what my father looked like because I was quite young when he passed on. However, my mother told me he was a wonderful teacher of science subjects.

Students used to enjoy his lessons. He also loved the bottle. He would not teach before taking a glass of alcohol," Dixon Mubiru says.

In the 1980s, when the National Resistance Army (NRA) war started, Mubiru joined the guerillas as a child-soldier.

"I had just joined Busibo Secondary School in Bushenyi, when the NRA cut off western Uganda at Katonga near Masaka.

There was limited communication between us and Kampala. Going by the information we were receiving, I thought my mother had been killed by Obote's soldiers.

My mother also thought I had been killed at school. I could not cross Katonga to return to Kampala. I was, thus, compelled to join the NRA guerillas in the bush in 1986.

"I was trained for one week and given a gun. One night, Museveni came to see us. He asked us: ‘Mutagombana?' (Kiswahili for will you fight?) We replied: ‘Tuligombana kutoka tangu' (we started fighting a long time ago).

"I was given a gun. They gave us the privilege to wear the uniform of any government soldier we killed, regardless of their rank.

One night, I was taken to our base in Lwengo and assigned to man a roadblock with two other child soldiers. An army truck drove towards us and I ordered it to stop. But it just continued on.

When the driver stopped, I cocked my gun to shoot. When I got to the truck, I realised the driver was one of our commanders, Afande Sewanyana. I feared he was going to rebuke me. Surprisingly, he praised me.

 "You are a smart soldier," he said.

Ssewanyana made me his bodyguard. He even gave me a new army uniform. I was excited because it was uncommon for a recruit like me to have a new uniform.

Fellow kadogos (child soldiers) wore tattered clothes."

When the NRA captured Kampala, Mubiru continued to live with Sewanyana at a flat in Kamwokya. Here, he was reunited with his mother.

"Every day, many curious people would come to see us. One morning, a woman knocked at the gate. When I went out of my uniport to open it, I realised she was my mother. When she recognised me, she wept and collapsed.

She had not expected to find me alive. I assured her that I was fine. But she insisted that she wanted me to go back to school. I told her I would talk to Sewanyana about it.

"When mum returned the next day, Sewanyana told her it would be difficult for the army to release me immediately. Plans were underway for the army to start a school for the young soldiers.

Mother, nonetheless, was not easily persuaded. A few days later, Sewanyana called me to his flat and told me he was letting me go back to my mother.

He assured me he still loved me and would remain in touch with me.

However, because I still wanted to be in the army, I carried my uniform and a grenade home. When mum discovered them, she lost her cool.

She reported the matter to Sewanyana, who came and collected them. 

Priestly ambitions

Mubiru moved to Kololo to live with his mother, a staunch Catholic who regularly attended mass at Mulago Catholic Church.

Mubiru would go to church with her. Gradually, he developed the desire to become a priest.

"I attempted to join a seminary, but I was rejected because my parents had not wedded in church. I was studying at St. Francis Secondary School, Kampala," Mubiru says.

Mubiru got saved after a friend of his talked to him about Christ.

"I had a friend in Kamwokya who had told me about the unconditional and steadfast saving love of Jesus. I gave my life to Christ. My mother was not happy with my decision," Mubiru says.

Before he completed S6, Mubiru was employed as a security guard at the US Embassy. Later, he got a job at Impact Radio, where he presented the Cathedral Tunes programme.

It was at Impact Radio that Mubiru made connections with a London theological seminary, where he went and trained as a pentecostal minister, in 2000.

"I was happy because all along I had desired to become a priest. Being a minister was a good consolation for me.

I went to London's Vision Theological College with no money. The head of the college helped me find a part-time job.

I became popular at the college because of my charisma. I did a diploma in biblical ministry and counselling.

I then did a degree in theology at Power Age Christian College in South East London. From 2006 to 2008, I studied for my master's degree. I was subsequently ordained into ministry."

After his theological studies, Mubiru remained serving the Lord in London until 2014.

"I was doing well in London. But the Lord told me to return and serve His people here in Uganda."

Mubiru returned and established Rescue International Christian Ministries, at Buloba, on the Kampala-Mityana road.

Mubiru's ministry

Mubiru's ministry is centred on the unconditional love of God.  

"God's love, agape love, differs from man's love. Man loves you because he wants something from you. If he gets it, he forgets about you.

The love of man is, in most cases, selfish and hypocritical. Today, the Church direly needs agape love.

God loves us as we are — poor or rich. We have to receive the love of God and subsequently, pour it out unto the people we live with in our communities. Love also goes hand in hand with forgiveness," Mubiru concludes.

This story was first published on April 12, 2015